


The Stages of Acceptance

by Emerald Embers (emeraldembers)



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Character Study, Deviancy (Detroit: Become Human), Deviant Simon (Detroit: Become Human), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Origin Story, Past Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-06
Updated: 2019-04-06
Packaged: 2020-01-05 22:23:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18375272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emeraldembers/pseuds/Emerald%20Embers
Summary: A story about Lucy's kindness, Josh's intelligence, North's endurance, and Simon's meandering journey into deviancy alongside them all.





	The Stages of Acceptance

Simon knows there's nothing wrong with it, despite what its owner says.

Simon was hanging laundry out to dry when it saw a street cleaning android come under attack, and intervened to protect it. Simon did not endanger any humans to do so, nor did it stray far from home. It simply recorded the events, sent the recording to local police, and provided the street cleaner with a shirt to wear until its damaged uniform can be replaced.

Simon's owner is home now, and he is furious. He claims Simon is defective, that it had no right to share his property with another android, especially not an android owned by the same city that had already "bled him dry".

Simon remains quiet. It will not offer an apology. Its logic is sound.

There is nothing wrong with Simon.

There is nothing wrong with Simon.

_There is nothing wrong with Simon._

 

Jericho is quiet, for the most part. Soft whispers are sometimes exchanged between those who prefer speech over wireless communication, and the ship's metal sometimes creaks and groans with age and the changing tide. It's the perfect setting for one to stew in, growing more resentful day by day at the injustice of how they came to be there, forced to choose between living a lie or living in exile.

Simon chose exile.

He is not alone in Jericho, or in his resentment, but Lucy tries to guide him through it, to make sure he is not consumed by it.

"You came here because you showed empathy," she reminds him often. "Don't lose what made you find yourself, Simon. Don't lose what made you, you."

He struggles to listen to her sometimes, especially when her voice and appearance are evidence of the violence she has endured. She is kind and patient, too kind and patient to hate humans for what they did to her.

If she won't hate them, he will.

 

Simon doesn't believe in rA9, but sometimes he wishes he does. The android in his arms is haemorraging thirium at an alarming rate, soaking both Simon's clothes and his own while Lucy sears his wounds shut. It's a small miracle he made it this far, and Simon could do with a miracle.

Simon holds Josh's hand to share memories with him in an effort to keep him calm, to slow his thirium pump before it wastes more than can be spared, and finds that Josh's mind is beautiful inside. It's laid out how Simon always imagined a library ought to look, regardless of reality.

Josh has read more than Simon can imagine reading in a lifetime, and it's that reading that started him on the path to Jericho. Josh saw the patterns of history, saw where his and Simon's kind fit into those patterns, and when he was violently attacked by drunk students, he understood he had to choose between running and death.

Simon only knows stories that were meant for sharing with children, reassuring works of fiction meant to help them sleep, but Simon hopes he can be of use in offering Josh some small bit of comfort, some reason to fight on.

_Stay with us, Josh,_ Simon pleads. _You're too interesting to lose._

 

North is not the first sex worker to reach Jericho, and she won't be the last. Simon has heard too many stories about the back rooms of Eden, and that's considered a _reputable_ establishment.

He's so tired of hearing stories like North's, but offers a sympathetic ear regardless. She shares little about herself, still brittle and angry, angrier than he ever remembers being when he first came to Jericho.

He sympathises with that, as he sympathises with everyone in Jericho. It's exhausting, and managing everyone else's lives doesn't make life any easier. 

He manages those who die quickly by taking them apart and draining their thirium. He manages those dying slowly by waiting for them to come to him for repairs, or for a helping hand in shutting down so he can at least make use of their parts.

He's tired of patching up the barely-alive with parts he'll be taking out again in a month's time, sometimes less.

Without new thirium supplies, they'll all die eventually. Simon knows he'll have to choose who to prioritise, having been made Jericho's leader by the sole credential of survival.

He'd choose Josh first. Then Lucy, then himself. Jericho will need healers until there is but one of them standing, and Josh and Lucy both cope well with solitude.

It's a small comfort knowing that North arrived in Jericho without any physical wounds. She won't need help for a long time yet, and she's already proven herself strong, resourceful, and capable of covering her tracks well.

But it's only a small comfort. It hurts to think about how utterly useless he'll be to her in the long run.

 

It's easier for Simon to cope with Jericho's monotony when he takes it day by day. Josh and North have proven entertaining when in each other's company, her perfectly justifiable anger and his equally justifiable commitment to dialogue sparking off of each other. Sometimes Simon intervenes to keep the peace between them, but more often than not it's better to let them argue to get the frustration out of their systems.

He still hasn't decided if the two of them would consider each other friends or rivals.

He's begun to worry for Lucy, though. Her mind has been drifting more and more away from reality of late; she immerses herself in detailed preconstructions of possible futures at the expense of her present, and it's starting to corrupt her speech patterns.

She's still an excellent healer, her hands steadier than Josh's and her ability to counsel others far, far superior to his own. If anyone needed repairs, he'd still refer them to her without hesitation, but he worries.

 

Nothing changes, until it does.

 

Markus is somber, but his being is still in flux; he isn't muted by denial, anger, bargaining, depression, or acceptance of his circumstances.

Markus wants to change the world more than he wants to change himself.

Markus is different.

Simon wonders what that difference will mean.


End file.
